The Cause of Unrest in Baltimore

NYT: A well-documented history of extreme brutality and misconduct set the stage for just this kind of unrest.

Proof can be found in a meticulously reported investigation by The Baltimore Sun of lawsuits and settlements that had been generated by police-brutality claims. “Over the past four years,” the investigation noted, “more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations.” The victims included a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant woman who had witnessed a beating, a 50-year-old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 65-year-old church deacon and an 87-year-old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson.

The report, published last fall, detailed what it called “a frightful human toll” inflicted by the police: broken bones, head trauma, organ failure, and even death, occurring during questionable arrests.

NYT: Baltimore, a long-suffering city that has in recent years shown encouraging signs of a comeback.

Economic indicators are watched closely in Baltimore, which has seen its base of solid, industrial jobs eroded drastically over the decades, only partly compensated by the growth of health care and higher education. Bethlehem Steel, whose plant is now an abandoned wasteland east of the city, was once the largest employer. Today it is Johns Hopkins University, which has a thriving campus on the leafy north side and a famous hospital and sprawling medical complex

In the years that economic transformation has occurred, the city’s population — which peaked at nearly one million in the early 1950s — has sunk to about 622,000, a result of both white and black flight to the suburbs. The drop slowed in recent years and now may be turning around, as several gentrifying neighborhoods draw young professionals.

Prior to 1966, African American officers were limited to foot patrols as they were barred from the use of squad cars. These officers were quarantined in rank, barred from patrolling in White neighborhoods. Further, African American officers were the target of racial harassment from their Caucasian coworkers and African American citizens in the communities they patrolled. During this time African American officers were subject to racial slurs from white co-workers during roll call, and encountered degrading racial graffiti in the very districts/units they were assigned.

During the civil rights movement, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) report showed the BPD to be the most corrupt and antiquated in the nation with an almost non-existent relationship with Baltimore's African American community. This lack of relationship resulted in African American citizens being subject to both excessive force from police officers, and retaliation from community members for interacting with city police officers.

Gang members went on television to dispute this press release, saying they “did not make that truce to harm cops.” Still, the Baltimore Police Department decided to do what George W. Bush did when he attacked Iraq: engage in a preemptive attack. The rumors of a lawless purge among local black high schoolers were also swirling. The youth in that area leave school to take public transportation buses to go home, as Baltimore City Public Schools doesn't have a fleet of buses like most school districts to take children back and forth to school.

Therefore, two misleading narratives collided to produce a potent recipe for violence. The police assumed that black youth in local gangs were targeting them and that some sort of violent purge was imminent, so they began painting a picture of imminent threat. Convinced that they were under attack and having sufficiently defined the enemy (i.e. black youth) to the press, the police decided to strike first.

Therefore, police deployed cops in riot gear to Mondawmin Mall to cut off the buses that the children from local schools use to take home before the children got out of school. From there, things descended into violence as frustrated children, trapped on city streets by armored police and cut off from their mode of transportation home, began hurling rocks and bricks at the police.

The police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas, turning West Baltimore into the scene of a revolt. The community, already reeling from grief following the funeral of Freddie Gray, decided they had nothing to lose. As the group of children were pushed south (see map), they were joined by the residents of Freddie Gray’s community, Sandtown-Winchester—already demonized and terrorized by police on a daily basis—in the revolt."

Off topic but why do people continue to call blacks "African Americans"? I mean no one ever says European American for whites, it makes it seem as tho whites areAmericans and blacks are "African" Americans. Keeping us seperated I guess.

BP201 saidOff topic but why do people continue to call blacks "African Americans"? I mean no one ever says European American for whites, it makes it seem as tho whites areAmericans and blacks are "African" Americans. Keeping us seperated I guess.

I think it has to do with the Census, statistic Government purposes, because there are recent immigrants from Africa or Blacks from Caribbeans and they're different from African Americans who were born here and live here for generations and longer?? I agree with you, yeah, it's sad, people are segregated. People don't call European Americans because there are so many types of White people! It's similar with *Asian-Americans, where there are Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese people ....etc. One of my Black college friend from Oakland said this a long ago, call him *black because he's proud of it and not AA! Lol, whatever float his boat I guess.

But yeah back to topic at hand, I think the riot happened because of a few bad apples and there are long tension between AA community and the cops in Baltimore. It's similar to the Los Angeles Riot in 1992 where the 4 white cops got off free after the brutal beating of Rodney King. (in this case Freddie Gray was the main catalyst)

Did anyone else read it and notice the words "race" and "racism" were not mentioned once in reference to anything done by police?

Here's one thing I had to chuckled about. Obviously no one at the NYT took time to think about how this is possible. It isn't possible.

❝ His family has said that 80 percent of his spinal cord was severed and that his larynx had been crushed. This account is at odds with a police report claiming that “the defendant was arrested without force or incident.”❞

We have a bad habit of correlating terrorism with religion. Okc was home grown. Terrorism is not about religion its a sociopathic opportunistic mindset. Sometimes messianic, sometimes not.If you racist idiots think I agree with you, I don't. We are all responsible for our own person.

I'll play. I think O'Reilly brings up an elephant in the room as if it is THE elephant in the room. He's saying a point that I, as a middle class black professional with a college degree, have heard over... and over... and over again from others and have read in article, studies and have seen as talking points. I consider myself to be successful, and true, my parents are indeed still together. My family demanded that I get good grades and openly celebrated my sister's success. Point noted. I agree with Bill that the family is the foundation for a good start. That goes for gay families, adopted families alike.

BUT, my wonderful parents, who were both college graduates and who were very successful in corporate America have also talked to me and my sis about how very hard and scary it was for them, just as American parents. IN ADDITION, they talk about the added burden of how scarred they still are from the racial interactions they experienced and shielded us from. Like when the Klan marched in front of my elementary school when I was a child. Klansmen who also happened to be police officers in our county. By the way, Bill, my parents experienced awful things even though they BOTH came from "intact" families.

You see, the black family wasn't always "fractured". And we still had riots, discrimination, were hung, had people call us nigger and many actually died, as their "intact" families weeped. With Chris Kyle, we call his damage PTSD. When kids are bullied we call it "trauma". With minorities, however, we call it laziness or are told to move on. If you ever wanted to see a study of the affect of how multiple decades of being racially bullied/treated like shit affects a culture/family... now you're seeing it. Some are lucky but many never recovered and were left behind. So they just dealt with it the best way they knew how. Others are just fucked up by not having people who care now.

O'Reilly may think that the breakdown of the black family is the chicken. Others of us who are a little closer to the situation have evidence that it just might be the egg....

NYT: The Baltimore police van that carried a fatally injured young man made a previously undisclosed stop on its way to a police station, the Police Department revealed Thursday, as it announced the completion of its initial investigation into the man’s death.

The new stop turned up on video taken from “a privately owned camera,” Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis said, and it was “previously unknown to us.” That suggested that the officers involved had not told investigators about it.